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Pakistan Executes 500 Prisoners In Four Years

Wednesday, December 19, 2018
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan lifted a long-standing moratorium on executions in the wake of the attack on Army Public School Peshawar in 2014 and since then, 500 prisoners have been executed in the last four year.
The country also stands amongst most prolific users of the death penalty, sentencing an average one person per day to death, accounting for over 14% of death sentences handed down worldwide, says a statement issued by Justice Project Pakistan on Tuesday.
The statement further reads, “In years following the lifting of the moratorium, countless cases of wrongful convictions and executions have come to light which show serious systemic flaws in the criminal justice system”.
In 2016, two brothers from Bahawalpur were acquitted by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa. When word reached Bahawalpur central jail, the prison authorities notified the court they had already been hanged a year before.
Recently, Islamabad came under fire internationally for its failure to abide by its international commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Convention Against Torture (CAT), and Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as it has knowingly executed 6 juveniles, and continues to have juveniles, mentally ill, and physically disabled people on death row.